March 22, 2007
Was Gandhi Anti-Semitic? (revisited)
I suppose if you’re going to post about Gandhi, the Jews, Nazi’s, and especially GOP Presidential candidates, you’d better expect some pretty passionate responses. After scanning the comments from the post (and yes, together with SM Intern, deleting some of the more inflammatory and personally insulting), I thought it would be interesting to spend more time on a central question — Was Gandhi Anti-Semitic when he recommended that “The Jews” “offer themselves to the butcher’s knife?”
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Guiding Light or “Useful Idiot”? |
The short answer is “no” but the question presents a particularly clear example of a classic political / moral divide — do we judge Gandhi’s position based on Intentions or Consequences?
Yesterday’s NYT details research which provides a bit more scientific basis to a divide philosophers have grappled with for centuries -
“…there are at least two systems working when we make moral judgments… There’s an emotional system that depends on this specific part of the brain, and another system that performs more utilitarian cost-benefit analyses…”
Gandhi’s intentions were absolutely NOT anti-Semitic. As the original post noted, “Jews were his friends”… he consistently prescribed the same strategy for Europeans as well as Indians & Jews… etc. In his heart of hearts, it’s clear from reading any of the linked material that Gandhi really did believe he was helping the Jews in the best way he knew how….. Heck, *he* probably believed he was pro-semitic. And for many, that’s the final litmus test.
The problem however, is whether good intentions let him off the hook when the consequences of his prescription are practically the perfect opposite. The glaring holes and leaps-of-faith in his policy would have undoubtedly led to an even easier extermination job for Hitler and his anti-Semitic ilk. Although it was the Soviets who took the technique to evil-brilliant heights (and to a much smaller extent, modern Jihadi’s), one can envision a hypothetical Nazi agent provocateur hired to spread Gandhi’s diatribes to the Jews (or any other Untermensch) just to speed things along. (how’s that for Machiavellian? 
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So by which measure do we judge him? And how can this case be so spectacularly conflicted? Well, in part it goes back to that old Mind vs. Body debate….
As noted earlier, Gandhi was an extreme case of being “of-the-mind.” Death of the body was literally inconsequential to him as long as the mental façade of passive resistance was maintained. He’d save their souls (and ours) by letting (their) bodies die from passivity.The dirty, grimy physical world was the rounding error to the pristine, beautiful mental and one day, if we all sat around and thought the right thoughts first, the malleable physical world would ultimately catch up.
Thus by mentally shoring up Jews for the holocaust with soothing talk of a “joyful sleep”, he really thought he was helping them out and leading the world to a higher, non-violent plane. He’d save their souls (and ours) by letting (their) bodies die from passivity. By making the Jews intentions pure and reducing ‘em to nothing but intentions, he’d eventually make the Nazi’s pure too and together we’d escape the Hobbesian trap.
If your analytical toolkit focuses on intentions, it’s pretty clear that not only was Gandhi far from anti-Semite, he was trying to save the whole of humanity. In fact for many, it’s so abhorrent to use His Name and anti-Semitism in a sentence that the classic response is to turn the same toolkit towards divining the intentions of the “accuser” - real or otherwise (in this case, uh, me - e.g. Ayn Rand Brigade, hit job, neocons/right-wing hawks ideas, character assassination, Machiavellian, a desire to score points, etc. — alas in some cases, divining intentions was the entire content of the comment).
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Plato: “His higher Forms make it impossible to be anti-Semitic!”…. Aristotle: “but what if down here, he ends up helping the anti-Semites?” |
For folks “of-the-body” however, Gandhi’s advocacy of “collective suicide” is far from “heroic” and were it not so tragic, would just be plain stupid. He thought the passive surrender of a few (or 6 million) was a small proximate price to pay for a higher, ultimate goal his belief system promised would come….
But those who value physical existence a tad more have a different calculus. And particularly those at the head of the sacrificial queue for Gandhi’s experiment in alternative reality. Reality ain’t as malleable as Gandhi would like and particularly the human nature component of it.
As the post pointed out, Gandhi’s “policy” is predicated on rather shaky premises —
- assuming all opponents have at least a Brit “moral code”
- a naïve view of “human nature” in general and the deep-rootedness of violence in particular
- not solving the game theory problem by messaging “these guys first”, etc.
These issues create a likely consequence (for the Jews) pretty diametrically opposite his intentions. The unfortunate result is to make people like Gandhi - to use Lenin’s memorable phrase - “useful idiots” for the opposition. The Nazi’s would never agree with Gandhi’s intentions nor vice-versa but the consequences would sadly be quite synergistic.
And for consequentialists, the primary measure of an idea is it’s physical, “of-the-body” result. Interestingly, in the Harvard study quoted by the NYT, localized brain damage in the Intentional side of the brain gave the Consequential free reign with results that would likely horrify Gandhi -
Damage to an area of the brain behind the forehead, inches behind the eyes, transforms the way people make moral judgments in life-or-death situations, scientists are reporting today….Those with ventromedial injuries were about twice as likely as the other participants to say they would push someone in front of the train (if that was the only option), or to poison someone with AIDS who was bent on infecting others, or suffocate a baby whose crying would reveal to enemy soldiers where the subject and family and friends were hiding.
Of course, this is far from saying that today’s Consequentialists must be brain damaged. On the contrary, the researchers believe the Consequential brain evolved after the Intentional.
So how do we sort all of this out? When do we use empirical Consequences to judge good vs. bad and when do we look at Intentions? At a prima facie level, the intentions side of the debate has one huge advantage — it’s pretty easy to stack rank values and it sure ain’t hard to rate “peace” above “war”. On the consequences side, we have to wade through the murky world of cost-benefit ratios and inherent twists & turns of Game Theory to rate likely consequences - that sort of talk just doesn’t get the heart going the same way.
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Peace or Game Theory - Which would you rather have on your T-Shirt? |
Empirically however, many ginormously huge and successful social systems manage to work pretty well based on Consequences and despite radically different - or at the very least unknown - Intentions of the parties involved. If Gandhi’s position is the extreme case of “intentions first, consequences - don’t worry”, one opposite system which puts “consequences first, intentions second” was perhaps most famously articulated by Adam Smith -
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
Just to point out one of the reasons why so many seemingly unrelated issues cluster together, anyone hazard a guess how Gandhi’s modern sign toting adherents feel about the role of Wal-Mart in feeding the country?
By contrast large scale, successful, durable systems predicated on aligned intentions are pretty hard to find & bank on - Communism? the Soviet Man? Political parties? Organized Religion? The UN? Culture? License Raj India? I dunno - I’m sure some Mutineers have their favorite examples…. While some may stand up in inherently cooperative situations, it’s tough to find big ones that can accommodate rather than wish away conflict - particularly at scale.
So to conclude, it’s probably no surprise from my first Gandhi post or, for that matter, any of my other posts that my decision rule leans heavily towards systemic, physical consequences (but not exclusively! strict utilitarianism has it’s limits!) and thus I’m literally aghast by Gandhi’s advice to the Jews…. The man might not have been anti-semitic in the true, intentional sense, but the consequential difference would have been, uh, academic.
vinod on March 22, 2007 04:32 PM in · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
Vinod- Why elevate the Brit moral code? It is and was what it is and was-- not great, often duplicitous, fork-tongued and much else that is and was plain bad.
No matter how one tries to get around it, it seems that Gandhi was anti-Semitic at a time when distal anti-Semitism was common and regarded by many Europeans, Indians, Brits and Americans as being quite acceptable, esp. if some of your best friends were Jews.
Vinod, tomorrow depends on what we do today, but tomorrow also depends on many other things. To look beyond the visible is to be fully human.
The distance between our plans and our goals is covered neither in confidence nor in self-interest, but in hope.
From what I read of Gandhi's words, he appears to be a person very much influenced by the popular opinions and "ethos" of his time and environments.
From his comments about native blacks in South Africa, to this here about the Jewish plight, to his ideas about sexuality and women, despite the fact that he did work very hard for women's rights in India. This is the symptom of an ordinary human being. We are all conditioned to one extent or another by our cultures, environments and the opinions of those around us.
Saying the brits were not nazis is hardly elevating their moral code. Just because one doesn't speak of colonialism, neo or otherwise, as being on par with hitler, bin laden, and hussein, doesn't make one an apologist for them.
Vinod, nice explanation of your thinking in the earlier post.
Manju, colonialism was appalling and went on for a long time. In this country, the entire indigenous population was dispossessed and disposed of -- i.e., largely exterminated-- by both blunt and underhand means, and this was ordered and carried out primarily by people of British descent. I don't think bin Laden or Hussein are/were equivalent to Hitler-- that's a Bush Admin. construct at best, parroted by the mainstream media circa 2003-2005.
i don't disagree w/ you. but where talking about against whom non-violent resistence would work. against the israelis? probably so, and very practical too since you can't beat them militarily. the kurds using it against saddam, forget about it. or the taliban? don't see it working. but, of course, if the palestinians were wise enough to use non-violent resistence, there would probably be no conflict in the first place.
another typo, should be :This idea is not actually Smithian but Mandevillian;
also just to make my point with an example, there are many games where the nash equilibrium is suboptimal; precisely because utilitarianism is not always consistent with rational egoism.
A rabbi, a Brahmin, and Gandhi walk into a bar...
I wondered why Louis Fischer sounded so familiar to me...aha..The God That Failed was one of my fave books in high school.
anyone who calls Gandhi anti-Semitic has clearly nothing more than a rudimentary understanding of what the man stood for.
With that being said, there is a lesson to be learned from the Jews on this issue. Notice how any slight against them or the Holocaust is instantly met and defeated; this is why they wield so much clout and why Israel is foreign policy priority number one here in America. Contrast with Indians; we can't even agree that when white people make fun of us, it's bad (see Anna's posts). Half of us would rather suck up to the white liberals than actually exhibit pride in anything indian; hence our continued internal strife and teh fractious state of the Indian political bloc.
oh, and one more thing, you cannot use game theory in support of your argument. It is possible to model Gandhi-like behavior game theoretically and see where it yields optimal outcomes. So you can have both peace and game theory on your t-shirt.
To these, I would add Democracy, Limited-Liability Corporations, Nation states, etc.
@Manju 7. It might be worth looking into how many Israelis died in the occupied territories in the seventies and how many died during the first Intifada. I do not claim to know the best strategy for the Palestinians. I would be careful about suggesting that non-violence would work or would have worked.
To argue that Gandhi's success was contextual and that he was misguided by his moral intuition (or even that his moral intuition was misguided) is quite different from alleging anti-semitism. Somehow, I think titling the post "Gandhi and the Jews" may have had a lot to do with the reaction it received. Thanks for the short answer. Your detractors will be satisfied.
This is a very strange discussion, one that magnifies a very small part of Gandhi's life and thought in a peculiar way. Gandhi life-work was in South Africa and India; he also had some knowledge of political life and culture of Britain. Beyond that, I believe he only had general principles to offer, even if as a kind of "big talker" he was always ready to give advice (as he did to the european jews).
I am troubled by the general tone of the article. It has a feeling of describing a
sort of special test that can be used to verify greatness - OK, now lets put this Gandhi guy to the real test - how did he do with the jews?
And that's the truth.
Is there a reason behind attempting to tear down Gandhi. I guess we all have a little Hitchens in us.
Why should he be immune to criticism? How about Washington or Jefferson? Great figures, but shouldn't they be held to account for the totality if their lives? Why canonize Gandhi?
So when Gandhi advised Bengali women in riot-torn Noakhali to commit suicide, was he just being anti-Bengali?
Vinod,
No amount of BS'ng can make up for your ignorance. Your assumptions since the last post are the same, and so is your starting point. The complete works of Gandhi - 100 volumes - are available on a CD. Spend the next few years reading through it and start all over again.
It seems you don't have the habit of reading something after you have typed. If you did you wouldn't write something this stupid
The only holes and leap-of-faith I can see here are your own. Judging someone by imagining what might have happened is speculative and worthless of any serious discussion.Frankly I think studying figures such as Gandhi, Washington, Jefferson - their good deeds and human faults, is a valuable exercise that one can learn quite a bit from. They weren't gods and had human faults just like the rest of us. Considering their contributions in the context of their times outweigh their faults, all in all, the exceptions to the case (Gandhi's beliefs on other groups struggling like Jews and Africans) don't invalidate his incredible contributions particularly to India. Gandhi's basic ideas have global applications, but first and foremost he struggled for India. Just like Washington, Jefferson and all fought for American Independence. They were nationalists of a different breed.
Somethings 50-60-100 or 1000 years in past may not suit our moral sensibilities of today, but does that negate the leaps in human achievement made when they existed. I don't think these guys should be treated as Gods, but definitely studied with fine tooth comb. Everything can't be made to fit our rose colored glasses of the 21st century.
Nice, the ad-hominem attack! Shiva, your post would contribute a bit more if you added substance to your post rather than calling someone ignorant, alluding to references, and not taking the time to put some information in your post.
Gautham, nice to see you, with your racist nationalism and the pathological chip on your shoulder, back here. SM Intern, am I alone in being irked by the casual attack on Anna and Nina in post #12?
Actually I'm inclined to take Vinod's argument more seriously because of Shiva's comment.
Looking at Gandhi NOW, sixty years after his death, we can afford to take an objective, discerning approach, and choose to incorporate into our lives whatever of his teachings/examples that we see fit. Unfortunately, his actual influence and role DURING his lifetime was not always so benign...and affected the lives of millions. I think as a leader, his philosophies sometimes only served to weaken his own followers.
Not sure if someone already made this point earlier. But, to me, and to wikipedia, Antisemitism (alternatively spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is defined as discrimination, hostility or prejudice directed at Jewish[1] persons as a religious, racial, or ethnic group.
What you argue above is that Gandhi held beliefs that, if also held and acted upon by all the jews in the world, would have led to the killing of jews. Gandhi based his advice to the jews on his personal moral code. He gave the same advice to Hindus in India. Does that make him anti-Hindu? He in fact would give the same advice to every human being. Does that make him anti-human? Hell he even gave the same advice to himself, and even acted upon it all his life. So is he anti-Gandhi?
Where do you find discrimination, hostility or prejudice here? This man had no hostility even for his tormentors! So to call him anti-semitic is plain wrong usage of the word. If I were you, I would drop the philosophy classes, and go study English.
But of course, I am not you and you are not me. What works for me may not work for you, and vice versa. Which brings us to my second point. To quote Gandhi:
All he is saying is what he would do under the circumstances, what his personal moral and spiritual code would ask him to do. And given his life story, it seems to me that he would indeed have done exactly what he said under the circumstances. And note that he is not expecting the other jews to join him.
Now in the completely hypothetical world where the jews would have listened to him, he would have indeed been a "useful idiot" for the opposition. And as a consequentialist, you would have been right in hating him. But the fact of the matter is that the jews did not follow his advice. So if you were talking about consequences, the response of the jews to his advice was "Thanks, but no thanks". Did he demand that all jews follow his advice? Did he go on a hunger strike when they did not? (Note that he did in fact go on a hunger strike when the hindus did not follow his advice) So going to the game-tree, there is no evidence that he did not expect the jews to play "no thanks" when he played "my advice: peace". I am not arguing that this was indeed his intention when said "my advice: peace", but merely pointing out that from a strictly consequentialist point of view, nothing he did ever hurt the jews. He made his move, they made their, no net negative effect on jews. Your argument seems to be suddenly choosing the intentionist viewpoint when convenient.
Just to be sure, I find his advice as absurd as you do. But to jump from there to calling him anti-semitic is a huge and unjustifiable leap.
i even question this, i.e. the assumption of being so sure of what would have happened if jews had followed Gandhi's principles . so the germans would have gleefully exterminated all of them? yes, that could have happened - but i wouldnt be so cocksure abt it. partly, it is because we are so used to complete de-humanization of Germans repeatedly after WW2, i think we go about thinking we know exactly what those "monsters would have done".
hypothetically, what could have happened if the jews had practised non-cooperation in some ways, for e.g. refuse to come voluntarily to concentration camps - prefer to be killed right there, if that's the only choice? yes, i wouldnt go to the extent of voluntary surrender, i.e escape while you can; but what if millions had refused to be transported to become slave labor and created a non-cooperation movement?
someone asked "why elevate the british moral code?" and similarly, why assume the worst of the worst when it comes to german moral code. Even the evil Hitler wouldnt have been able to function without ordinary Germans obeying him. weren't they all humans, after all?
ps: i just wanted to put these half-formed thoughts out there, since it seemed interesting to me to think on these lines, though i guess i am not being very articulate abt it - sorry.
Manju, I think we enjoy mistaking a very shrewd and powerful lawyer for a saint. If you look at Gandhi as SuperLawyer instead, it becomes clear that while his elective clients were colonized Indians, and possibly by extension all 20th C colonized indigenous peoples, he was under no obligation to offer anyone else any useful advice. Passive resistance only applies where the oppressor needs the active, living, operative cooperation of the oppressed for the oppressor to succeed. This was true of Britain's economic occupation of India. This was not the case with the Nazi Holocaust, and for different reasons is not the case in the Israeli-Palestinian situation. It didn't apply to Saddam's persecution of the Kurds, nor does it apply to the Taliban with respect to their objectives. OTOH, Gandhi's advice to colonized Indians might be marginally relevant to the Iraqi response to American occupation, but that is highly unlikely to obtain, given the nature and purpose of the occupation and the flavors of the indigenous culture. Passive resistance is certainly not in itself a spiritual method of prosecution, but it probably requires the adoption of certain practices normally related to spirituality, and indeed a certain concentration on spiritual values to carry out actions and policies devised on that basis.
Manju, I forgot to add that civil disobedience doesn't mean nice, polite, peaceful, non-violent and spiritual disobedience. It means disobedience that cannot be classified as criminal misconduct under existing statute. When such activity is met with punishment that is reserved for criminal misconduct, or by more violent measures that are not codified at all, it criminalizes the governing body that administers such false remedies.
My thoughts exactly :)
Not only was Gandhi anti-semitic, but anti-low caste people, anti-dark people, anti-Sikh, and anti- any non-Brahmin.
Why should he be immune to criticism? How about Washington or Jefferson? Great figures, but shouldn't they be held to account for the totality if their lives? Why canonize Gandhi?
No evidence whatsoever has been presented which would suggest that Gandhi was an Anti-Semite. I am still waiting to see the story behind Gandhi's possible age old pre-1950 European style Jew hatred and enemity.
When one starts with the title 'Was Gandhi Anti-Semitic', it leads one to believe that there is some debate on this issue. How about a title, 'Was Martin Luther King a terrorist' and then engage in ridiculous logic and word sophistry of consequences versus intentions.
Where's the proof of all this?
Are you from BFN?
interesting take. though obvioulsy gandhi would disagree with you. i guess, to put it more bluntly, if your oppressor is willing to exterminate you completely, forget non-violent resistence. (i think it would work in the israeli-palestinian conflict b/c israel needs the labor and b/c of their moral compass. the israelis are guilt-ridden about there policies as it is, but they have no choice. but ultimately, a democratic arab world would spell the end of a jewish state. so until jews are allowed in mecca, aparthied it is.)
not to mention, what do you do when your oppressor is just dying to get out? plus the connundrum of trying to resist your own democratically elected govenment b/c they are in cahoots with your oppressor. if your oppressor wants self-determination for you, do you resist self-determination?
I am reluctantly inclined to agree with AMD, especially since the consequence v. intentions argument and its link to utilitarianism and game theory is somewhat muddled. As I said above it is possible to model deontological ethics (such as Gandhi's) game theoretically and utilitarian ethics do not automatically imply egoism (in fact utilitarian and intention-based ethics are not necessarily mutually exclusive). So I'm not really sure that argument even applies.
amfd, you must be familiar with various theories positing that inequality of results is defacto proof of racism. its been used against the SATs and even the first ammendment (to defend hate speech laws and anti-porn laws). seemingly neutral priciples, they (such as the critical legal studies movement...since you're a lawyer) argue, have hidden bias.
so along comes gandhi advocating a position that would mean the extermination of an entire group. but mutineers, some of whom are as quick to charge racism as tawana brawley at a duke lax party, can't figure out what the problem is.
Not true. Non-violent resistance can make such a task harder, and give you high moral ground. Even Nazi's kept Jews around who benefited them.
Gandhi's advice was same for Indians as it was for the Jews. Does it mean he wanted the entire Indian population of India exterminated?
he knew the brits wouldn't exterminate everyone. he also knew the nazis would.
Perhaps he thought divine intervention or something like that would take place. Similar to his thoughts about women faced with a rape attempt.
Your original post said:
This gets reduced to:
here.Maybe pointing this out will be "personally insulting" enough to get this post deleted, but this is a pretty intellectually dishonest reduction, don't you think?
This is why alot of Sikh's are not fan's of Gandhi. He thought Sikh's were idiots for caring Kirpan's and would say thing's like "What would your rusty sword do against a gun?"
At least that's what alot of people have told me.
And again, this logic implies that a Jewish declaration of asymmetrical warfare (we mustn't call it terrorism), would have saved them. As though there was ANYTHING that Europe's minorities could have done to save themselves from the Holocaust. As though Gandhi's advice was somehow causally related to the actual act of slaying 6 million human beings. At least Gandhi acknowledged that something was happening in Germany -- the leaders of most Western nations didn't even go that far (to the point that the US actually went out of its way to keep fleeing Jews off its shores).
Vinod, I find your references to game theory problematic for a number of reasons:
a) Explanatory political theory deals with the application of game theory to political situations, so that phrase would have been more accurate(though admittedly it doesn't have the buzz that the term game theory has).
b) Gandhi's tactics have been analyzed by game theorists, so you set up a false dichotomy between game theory and Gandhi's philosophy. The most accessible paper (link*) I could find is by Robert Klitgaard, which models a subset of Gandhi's tactics as two-party conflict models. The paper makes a number of conclusions, but the one that seems most relevant here is that, for the technique to work, the opponent must believe that you are irrational and keener to minimize his/her payoff than to maximize your own. In that sense, it would have been suicidal for Gandhi's movement for him to admit that there are situations where he thinks violence is justified, becau the Brit belief in his complete irrationality(carefully fostered by him), that was key to his success, would have been lost.
c) Many conclusions that game theory provides are made under simplifying assumptions and models. A mathematical model is not the real world: it is designed to be tractable, and makes many tradeoffs. For example, most models of Satyagraha model it as a two-player game, which was clearly not the case historically.
d)
I am not at all sure how you contrast Iraqi insurgents to Gandhi in the game theoretic perspective(and I checked the links). Could you elaborate. IMO, at least game theoretically, both Gandhi's and the insurgents' techniques are remarkably similar, as they imply that they are more interested in minimizing the opponent's payoff than in maximizing their own.
* You need a JSTOR account to access the paper, so let me know if you(or anyone else) want me to email it to you.
Nina, I know there is a school of thought that measures the quality of a post as the inverse of the weighted mean of the quality of the comments on the post, but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Gandhi mad a whole HOST of anti-Sikhism and anti-Sikh statements in his lifetime. I once saw a website that detailed most if not all of them. I've been trying to find it again, if I do I'll post the link for it.
The concentration camps were integral to the Nazis' plan to exterminate all Jews, just like our factory farms and sausage factories are kept out of view of decent consumers, who wouldn't tolerate animal abuse on their own doorsteps. Concentration camps not only kept the mass-torture and -murder of Jews (and Gypsies, homosexuals, some "criminals" and intellectual dissidents, and others) away from the more delicate sensibilities of most Germans, they also exploited Jewish labor. Jewish labor, to exterminate Jews. In hindsight, non-cooperation looks great. But non-cooperation requires a fearlessness and willingness to die that is unfair and unrealistic to expect of most people. Gandhi's advice to everyone was to be a saint, and most people aren't saints, whether they're victims or oppressors. On the other hand, his ideas have persuaded a lot more people to act like saints than a cynic like me would have imagined possible, and for that I hold him in high esteem.
I don't buy this argument at all. Not all of Israeli society is so guilt-ridden. There are significant signs that they are in favor of holding onto the Golan heights indefnitely, even though there is no actual violence there. Furthermore, I don't expect that the settlers in the West Bank, who take the biblical view of their right to the land will be convinced by pragmatic arguments. Additionally there is no reason to link the issue of allowing jews (or any one else) in Mecca with the issue of self-determination for the Palestinian people. In this case you are holding the Palestinian people responsible for the acts of the whole Arab world. This can be at best called a dodge. As to the issue of labor, I think your argument does not hold again. Since the beginning of the second intifada, Israel has begun to rely more on labor from both Asia and migrants from Russia , many of whom are not Jewish. Your argument also ignores the issues of the West Bank aquifers that Israel (within pre-1967 borders) cannot currently do without.
Actually i think this is at the heart of the matter, since it is really an arab/israeli conflict. but if you want me to untie the Palestinians readiness to accommodate minorities from the rest of the arab world, then lets say until the Palestinians are ready for democracy, even a two-state solution would be untenable. given the power, i fear they'd kill all the jews. some liberation movements aren't really seeking liberation.
Obviously, I disagree. Self-determination for the Palestinians cannot be contingent on the actions of third parties. Other substantial issues, I mentioned earlier, prevent me from believeing that the Palestinians will obtain a viable sovereign independent state through non-violent resistance. I wish this explanation of a lack of Palestinian democracy were adequate to explain all Israeli behavior. The evidence is against it, particularly when we consider the behavior of the military government that Israel had in the occupied territories in the seventies and the eighties. A significant issue, I think, is Israeli hubris, now much diminished, that a solution could be imposed on the Palestinian people.
TROLL ALERT
vinod - The glaring holes and leaps-of-faith in his policy would have undoubtedly led to an even easier extermination job for Hitler and his anti-Semitic ilk.
assuming all opponents have at least a Brit "moral code" - killer is a killer is a killer that's it. what morality are you talking???
Are you conflating the Holocaust with factory farming? I think most people do know about factory farms and don't really care, but theoretically would be upset about people being tortured.
I'm not trying to say animals=people, I'm trying to say keeping violent abusive slaughterhouses out of the average citizen's* sight is essential to keeping them operating smoothly, else "decent" people might stop tolerating them.
*Average citizen = backbone of society. Hitler depended on their cooperation.
Kunal said, in #28:
Nailed it in one, albeit unintentionally. Gandhi was indeed anti-human. Orwell pointed that out a long time ago.
As a symbol of the independence movement, as a moral force, as a conciliator, Gandhi was peerless, unmatched by any figure in blood-soaked history of the 20th century. But to actually apply his philosophy to the modern world outside the specific context of the Independence Movement was and is madness.
Speedy
Manju: I completely disagree with your analogy of unequal results being de-facto evidence of racism. You are right to the extent that it has been widely used in the cases of racial discrimination (for example in police entrance tests which most blacks would fail at etc.)
I will get back to you on here tomorrow about where I disagree as I am really busy today :)
I said: " Passive resistance only applies where the oppressor needs the active, living, operative cooperation of the oppressed for the oppressor to succeed. This was true of Britain's economic occupation of India. This was not the case with the Nazi Holocaust, and for different reasons is not the case in the Israeli-Palestinian situation. It didn't apply to Saddam's persecution of the Kurds, nor does it apply to the Taliban with respect to their objectives."
Manju replied:
Manju-- Not clear what you mean about Gandhi "obviously" disagreeing with me-- how can you presume on this? Throwing oneself off a cliff is suicide, not passive resistance. Passive resistance is more akin to going on strike. But yes, I do say that if your oppressor is looking to exterminate you then on its face passive resistance is pretty useless. My point is that lawyers are pretty naughty people, even great lawyers.
Many prominent and intellectually gifted Israelis have indeed been eloquently vocal against Sharon and Likud's past and ongoing Netanyahu-led policies, but I don't know that this amounts to being "guilt ridden" or if there are other people who might actually be guilt ridden, Still, why posit a moral compass in the context of expanding territorial borders? Israel is a pretty small place to function as a homeland for all Jews-- afaik, it seems to be functioning mostly as a homeland for some European and American, i.e., Ashkenazi, Jews, with Sephardim by and large still taking a back seat at best. In any case, I'm sure the fresh water, sunny real estate development opportunities and salty coastline for commercial and naval development are more attractive prospects than securing the entire Palestinian population as a captive labor force. OTOH, it's not clear why Palestinians would or should settle for becoming a racially defined underclass within their present remaining homeland. That's what I call a conundrum.
I said: "Gandhi's advice to colonized Indians might be marginally relevant to the Iraqi response to American occupation, but that is highly unlikely to obtain, given the nature and purpose of the occupation and the flavors of the indigenous culture."
Manju replied:
This doesn't seem to me so much of a conundrum. The people who sent in the troops categorically don't want out-- we have confirmation of that today, with Bush announcing hisintention to override the House vote to stop funding the "war" and to pull out troops by the fall of 2008. Meanwhile, the Iraqi nationalists (as they have yet to declare themselves) just tried twice in one day to assassinate the deputy PM of their puppet Govt, who was after all put in place through Occupation-monitored elections. Passive resistance would have worked, e.g., for those elections, if all or even most Iraqis refused to vote, but IIRC, they conducted their elections under threat of continued assault. The Bush Admin does not want actual self determination for Iraqis, just the appearance of self determination. The Bush Admin is still driven by elements from an older generation who think the Japanese Parliament is just wonderful, well adopted and adapted -- for being so quick to pass legislation to support the Iraq war. In any case, it was all for oil and Halliburton-- you hardly need Iraqi cooperation for that. Leaving means losing control of the oil and probably construction contracts.
But enough, alls I'm saying is Gandhi was a great man but no saint. The saint part is the orientalist phantasie.
@Amrita 58. Excellent and nuanced post. Suicide bombing cannot explain why the Israeli government has disregarded the property rights of Israeli Arab citizens. Very often entire towns have been confiscated for "national security" purposes and then handed over for Jewish settlement. If the Israeli public is "guilt-ridden" about this, they have concealed it well. The other issue that comes to mind is that of the "present absentees" law, that confiscated the lands of those Palestinians who were internally displaced by the 1948 war. In sum a much stronger case needs to be made to show that non-violent techniques will work tactically as opposed to morally.
@Al_Mujahid_for_debauchery 57.
Count one more person as interested in your argument.
Absolutely. And that's what Gandhi's techniques targetted, the silent majority.
Also, all this talk about whether intention matters, I'd say surely it does. Even the western judicial system acknowledges it (for those of you that require western reconciliation for all your morals) by having "manslaughter" and "murder" as distinct charges, where manslaughter carries a lesser legal penalty.
Here's a side question: What happened to desis living in Germany during WW2 and the holocaust? What happened to biethnic Desi/Germans? To dark-skinned Desis?
this is a 1/2 truth. the house vote reveals where the political reality is. troops cannot stay there too much longer, unless the iraqi people request them, as they may if conditions improve. either way, they're gone in a few years at most. so that's part of the connundrum of using passive resistence against a occupier that doesn't want to occupy for long.
these nationalists are killing iraqis mostly. and it can be seen as a civil war as much as a fight against the occupier. as far as a puppet govt goes, its not that simple. the puppet just sighed an oil agreement with syria, among other signs of independence. either way, they represent the iraqi people better that the terrorist/ insurgents. sometimes the puppet pulls the strings.
i don't think the iraqi people wanted to resist the elections, and there is no evidence that they felt coerced into voting. the terrorists tryed to coerce them out of voting. but they did it anyway. you have to be inhuman not to be touched by the bravery.
its hard to debate politics based on motive. but if we must, inside accounts help. bob woodwords book makes clear wolfowitz wanted self determination. rummy wanted to get out quickly. and casey thought wmds was a "slam dunk".
i think the iraqis would take a japanese solution. a healthy powerful rich independent state that used to be occupied by the usa. this is the connundrum i'm talking about. who want to resist an occupier who want this for you?
actually iraqi oil production has been stuck b/c of the security situation. much of it vulnerable to sabatoge. this partially acounts for high oil prices and why iraq has been unable to fund its own reconstruction.
so the connundrum facing the iraqis is that their occupier wants them to have freedom and wealth more than their resistence movements.
You wish Casey were at Langley don't you? That son of a bitch is as dead as dead can be. Good riddance.
oh yes. thanks no von, i meant tenet. i guess i was feeling nostalgic for a real freedom fighter. RIP.
The Iraqis, obviously.
#60 (HMF), intentions may matter less and less as we find out more about the human mind. If all our decisions are just changes in the levels of chemicals, then how does it matter whether someone chose to kill a man or did so without intending to? I recall this article in the Economist a few months back, which mentioned a child molester whose actions were caused by a certain neural abnormality. Does this absolve him from his crime?
Blackwater: Bush's Shadow Army
Privately contracted troops - never reported in action, in casualties, in death.
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/93.html
If I had been the one to write that phrase, I would have meant that the British believed themselves to be moral, and therefore could be shamed by the exposure of the immorality of their policies (and of the immorality in the behavior required to enforce those policies).
Vinod, Great Post!
No of course not, but you're working with aposteriori knowledge of the event. Such a comparison doesn't hold here. Gandhi's advice is there as is, as nothing more than advice, you are talking about nuaces within the human brain, and entering into phsyiology. But even in such cases, intent is identified and used when passing judgement. Intent cannot be written off completely, especially in the case of someone like Gandhi - unless you claim his advice was morbid and deplorable to the Indians as well
At no point did he state the British were uniquely susceptible to non-violent tactics, that their history as a civilization would permit them to "see the light" through such a human display of suffering. This is a western grafting and exrapolation, to rationalize their own violent tactics.
What I don't understand is how Gandhi and King's advice is applauded when given to their own people, yet is discarded as "impractical" and "ludicrous" when it's suggested for others. That, is complete hypocrasy. If you plan to engage in debate, stick to the topic rather than bring in erroneous comparisons.
Dear Vinodji, Please READ your books first before even claiming to pretend as an author and a critic of Gandhi. Afer all no wonder there are so many self-professed intellectuals in our nation and this is the root of all problems. So, my advice: Please do not bite more than you can chew.
Vinod's attention to the fallacy of intention in Ghandi's prescription to the Jews is unusually thoughtful and rigorous. It is entirely possible that Ghandi exhausted his moral imagination in his work among Indians and that he harbored a profound indifference to human beings outside the Indian situation that led to reckless indifference to the consequences of his advice. His letter following the war in which he he argues that it is a pity that the Jews did not follow his advice so their death would mean something indicates that the problem ran deep indeed.